


So Happy Together

by LegendofMajora



Series: Empty Love [1]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 14:45:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3414599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LegendofMajora/pseuds/LegendofMajora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mornings are meant for kisses, breakfast in bed, and another day of it's just too good to be true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Happy Together

The morning after doesn't feel like it's supposed to. No wake up morning kisses, realizing he's lying naked next to someone he's supposed to love-hate. And still not the same warm curl in his stomach, sated and flushing with the body heat of a smaller body, curled and tangled in his between scattered limbs. Maybe waking up and awkward conversations or breathy sighs in neither of them wanting to wake up just yet. Breakfast in bed, possibly another round if Izaya asks for it and Shizuo is quite stiff, possibly or not by Izaya's own tricks in the early morning of coming into work a little late. Today isn't quite the same as the others and Shizuo wonders if it's a seasonal thing, or the stale air of sex and sweat drying on sheets and coating the walls is starting to get to him. Dull monotony, it feels like nothing is right when lying in bed and the arms around him don't feel like Izaya's.

Shizuo twists out of the skinny arms, retracting his own and satisfied when Izaya curls into empty blankets, standing alone with sweatpants and a missing shirt probably beneath his mattress. Pulling on another shirt seems useless, skipping the shower when he doesn't want to see the bite marks and scratches littering his chest and stretching around to his back. Some of them are gently turning a week old and others are bright red and warning, daring anyone to question with nips and teeth marks burning red to stay away. It's better, Shizuo decides, if no one asks.

One last glance choking never meaning to look back to Izaya and the sheets—his own sheets in skinny fingers and covering a coy body, marked and warmed with only his body heat shared between the two of them. Mocha eyes watch, waiting for any signs of waking up and noticing that the emptiness isn't just a dream-like feeling of twitching fingers and waking up to sleepy signs of morning discoveries of headaches and chest pains like having a heart attack when nightmares become real. Just like this one and he imagines if there's an escape to this then he must have missed it on the way out of bed, never stumbling on his own floor and when he turns away. He doesn't understand why he's not back in bed with that body and face close to him.

Doesn't feel like himself today. These past few minutes feel like hours, ticking through his veins and down to the wear of bone and grit, muscles unfamiliar in his own body when they are the ones that have been in contact with Izaya's unconscious grip. Suffocating in the familiar sense of dealing with the flea often, but unsure what to rule it as when leaving a bedmate in his bed and without a word. Which is strange and confusing because this is not normally him, preferring to cuddle in the mornings when Izaya is too sleepy to resist and this isn't making any sense at all when he doesn't find himself craving another touch of the flea.

Instead Shizuo questions why the sensation of repulsed nerves crawls and shivers beneath his skin, pricking at the hairs rising on his arms when he remembers the touch of Izaya's arms on him. Everything lying in his bed feels wrong from the sheets to the inhabitant and he doesn't want any part of this in this morning and asking why is what he's been meaning to get to. Clicking the door shut to his room and a hand through his messy hair, forgoing the shower because Shizuo cannot find the will to think straight with Izaya—a lover, boyfriend, whatever he's called—and today doesn't feel right at all.

Down the hallway he settles for turning on the lights, blinking once or twice and it's just seven in the morning by now, which isn't usual time for waking up. Some days, especially with Izaya over and refusing to release Shizuo to getting back to a meager life (why waste the day with others?) and holding the monster hostage, it takes until ten in the morning to finally wake up and get to work. Late on days he has work, kind of shrugging to explain because their relationship isn't public and that's preferable to both of them so Shizuo doesn't bother and Izaya keeps it to himself. Comfortable, dull, routine morning cuddling, often sex, warm showers turning cold if they're not quick enough, and breakfast.

Today then, is a very off day when Shizuo leans against his counter and the empty feeling in his chest, swallowing past his throat and bobbing the way down to his stomach to poke at his lungs and heart, doesn't make move to leave. It won't budge no matter the milk carton Shizuo grabs and takes a drink, sweet strawberry and one of his favorites he doesn't remember buying for himself. Maybe it's a mistake or a fluke, since surely Izaya isn't one for stupid little gifts and Shizuo doesn't bother with it much at all. They've been tentative not fighting and getting along in games of sex and other not normal things that come from dating. No cooing, no hand holding, no nothing in public when the attention doesn't cut it.

So why then do the words start forming in his fuzzy thoughts, meaningless and empty just like the ache separating his left lung from his heart? Why are his ribs spreading in breaking bits to rearrange the inside of his body, cutting him open as if to bleed him dry and wait for the next person to come by and pick him back up? Something tells him that the feeling of weights on his tongue isn't just from having a dry mouth and sweet milk but the strange sensation, tingling down the back of his throat and the kind of heavy dullness isn't one he knows. Not familiar with at all and certainly not while with Izaya.

Maybe it just feels so different, being with Izaya instead of killing each other. They haven't fought for real in months and months and the strange part is that this is the eighth month of being together. Starting with summertime relief and a person to have for easing stress in hot temperatures, sweating together with pants and groans for a month before they decide to start this dating thing. It's Shizuo's idea first and everything sounds shaky on unstable ground like earthquakes commonly found in Japan but this one stirs and rumbles with the tentative steps of walking first, asking for a decision to be made. Izaya makes the fool and plays along, going with the hesitant asking of going on a date because maybe he's bored like Shizuo is.

Month by month crawls or darts on by, playing games of chasing tail and catch with kisses and bites. Shizuo finds himself lucky Izaya bothers putting up with this game of being together and starting new things that aren't generally his style, but he wants this enough. So Izaya stays amused, lets Shizuo play his game and along the way it's possible he gets swept in. Probably enough, but Shizuo likes to think that Izaya like-loves him just as much even if they don't say traditional confessions when gods and monsters have never been normal together.

Shizuo sits, leaning sighing counting the days of being together hanging on a calendar across the room, near the television set and remembering the times of cuddling to gasping groans and hot flesh on his couch. The entire room, he starts to feel the suffocation of too many memories soaking in the fabric and walls, is filled with Izaya. Everything with his scent on it, no matter how beastly that sounds and Izaya laughs at him anyway, the scent masking in with the reek of a flea that tastes like a high he can't get enough of when he licks the sweat beading off of Izaya's skin. When the informant gives into the sensation, rising his hips and moaning softly, he can't help himself but suck and nip at the skin a little harder. Give something for the flea to complain about when he says they're domestic and boring.

Now the eccentric thought breathes through Shizuo's nose and no matter how many times he shakes his head or tries to identify the feeling, the ache weighs in his chest. Everything is so perfectly fine and there's nothing to worry about so why must there be an unsure uncertainty to taint and imperfect the strange relationship of being with someone who is an opposite? Monsters to demonic gods and angels don't exist for them and it's supposed to be okay but for this time and this morning of not wanting to voice the words that don't exist souring on his tongue, he wonders what he means to say.

Perhaps he's only tired but his brain doesn't exert the same feeling of wanting or needing more sleep and the furthest part is wanting Izaya back in his arms, warm and something like an attachable shitty pillow with the flea hogging everything in his selfish ways. Shizuo doesn't mind at all what the flea does and as long as the bed isn't lonely most of the time it's perfect when meaning to be _all_ the time and this time it doesn't feel like the perfectly round pieces fitting together. Happy little cohabitation games, sex, kisses, and tastes of coffee and sugar are bitter like metal and blood. He remembers the fondness of watching Izaya's movements, careful and decisive but quick and almost too difficult to catch, moving quickly on his own pace own time own schedule when Shizuo is realizing that his stomach feels like a clock without any numbers to define movement. Pointless painstaking measures of being together for this long, it feels like a natural habit.

Instinct, maybe.

There are also the dark times of doubt that don't crop up as often but still do, mainly taking place in the beginning of the relationship but also with the length of going steady on pushing anger to the back burner and touches up front. Rarely do they come when this time isn't so much the same as wondering if Izaya is just messing with him, feeling too grim when the conviction starts to stir and shiver and ache with the realizations sinking in or questioning everything intentional. The lack of recovering shudders and shaking the faults in his sinking thoughts makes them cut a little deeper, oozing into the wounded flesh and the pain of having open sores isn't sharp or dull. It's buzzing, warm, and silent. Everything is quiet inside his mind.

And it's there that the words start to take shape. Building into letters and rolling over his tongue, unsteady but still clinging to his teeth and tongue to coat themselves in the slick cast of saliva to make them easier to speak—unintentional, but waiting for the moment to strike. Shizuo isn't sure what to think of a coiling snake in his own imagery while picturing Izaya as the culprit though if there is anything wrong with the flea, it wouldn't be the same warning hiss of a serpent.

Life happens, sometimes. Shizuo finds the moment of clarity later instead of for now tracing fingers over the nape of his neck, mimicking Izaya's straying touches and not understanding why he doesn't feel the same electricity one morning. Yesterday seems fine so there really isn't an understanding to why this is happening. Some sort of revelation, prophetically stupid and even worse to attempt in coveting the entire feeling of having one life—crumble. Another one, stretching before him beneath fingers that don't crave Izaya's flesh and find himself repulsed by the strange notion of having another in his bed. Completely silly, this entire operation is.

Pondering everything takes time and the minutes tick by, strawberry milk forgotten and spilling when Shizuo drops it, forcing himself to clean up the sticky sugary mess leaking over his counter and onto the floor with a wet cloth. Busied by his own head filling with meaningless thoughts ranging from confusion to frustration he doesn't hear the footsteps thudding down the hallway, reaching the main room and a lean body leaning against the door frame. No time to realize this mistake before it can leave his mouth and cause so much damage that it hurts to think about later—save it for another time, catch up in reference when the breaking is done and patched with bandages that have kittens and puppies on them.

Shizuo is such a child. Izaya agrees.

And later—he'll come to grip the full meaning. "What, no breakfast for me this time? Shizu-chan's learning a bad habit again." Izaya's sleepy voice calls to him and the first minute of hearing it the tone doesn't register as something important. Really, this day is ending before it begins and the sun is setting on whatever saying goodbye to any rationality flying out the window with a swan dive into ugly regret. "I'd honestly prefer something fresh like an omelet, coffee, maybe even a traditional Japanese-style breakfast...?" Izaya continues speaking to the silent air, perhaps picking up on the feeling that the ache of something not being right at all and quieting his voice to the murmur it is, usually one to earn him another round of sex. Gentle enough or rough, depending on how hard Shizuo is in the mornings and this morning feels different. It's not always bad, though.

They don't know. "Shizu-chan," Izaya hates being ignored and Shizuo can't really blame him, being egoistic and selfish and petty while vain enough to get what he wants, silly and stupid and it doesn't matter too much when composing the entire personality of a twisted beauty such as the flea himself. Shizuo isn't big on the blanket ideas, but he likes the small things. "Are you so stupid that you can't answer me or embarrassed that you have nothing to say for how irresponsible you are? Ne, not feeding your guest breakfast after having sex with them isn't very nice, Shizu-chan."

The blond glances at the strawberry milk-stained rag in his hand, plopping in the sink with a dull muted slap and pink streams trickling down the drain. He watches in the same fascination of pink fluid moving like blood down the sink, thick with cream and sugar when it circles the drain, enunciating more of his thoughts than he knows how to speak. Izaya can have a conversation with himself in the dark of casting shadows, this relationship feels like a sunset in the mornings of never having a day to wake up to for today but a day to kill and watch it bleed dry. Down the drain, down every last significant meaning of why does he have to feel like this so early in the morning, why can't this just stop?

"Get your stuff," he speculates that it may sound severe, yet the will to care about the same curvature of Izaya's lips turning downward doesn't have the same elasticity of any emotion. Can it be that yesterday has the opposite effect produced whenever Izaya's emotions bother to show, unmasked by mornings in bed, or simply does it seem that it never matters? "And the rest of whatever you've left in my room. I need to clean up my apartment." Vaguely unfamiliar in the clenching sensation of Izaya glancing curiously at him, confused and blinking once or twice to clear the sleep from his eyes which makes it worse when Shizuo's expression doesn't falter. Won't even look at the flea, such a coward standing on wobbling legs.

Izaya shakes his head, peeling himself off the door frame and his hips sway, naked in every aspect in Shizuo's apartment and the blond finds himself entirely unaffected by the display or the show of watching this as if from another viewpoint. Disconnected entirely and watching himself pull out the plug to force life support to give it up, cough and struggle for air until it finally dies, buried in asphyxiation. "What, not awake enough yet to not say something stupid? Shizu-chan, you continually surprise me with how stupid you sound." But the funny thing is that it's funny and not at all, not at _all_ humorous when in fact watching a part of his life he's worked for suddenly turn to a standing halt and tremble when it trips and falls.

"It's not a joke, flea." Shizuo washes off his hand in the sink and eyes turn to Izaya's, trying to express why and questioning, always questioning the shooting thoughts in his head waiting arrival of an explanation, looking into the carmine eyes of a parasite and never understanding why he doesn't feel the same. "You need to leave." Dismiss him, watch Izaya laugh with a paused breath and how _long_ is this—going to last—going to take him until they can both split cleanly down the middle, not taking not giving not receiving any form of last regrets or disappearing acts. Just please _stop_ with leaning on the counter, one hand splayed away from his body and Izaya's hand resting close to his, fingers brushing when Izaya moves and this is going to be more painful if the stupid flea keeps this up.

"Oh?" Izaya's finger over his, tracing the indents between fingers and Shizuo finds himself even more repulsed by the touch of the flea's skin, alien and bare and uncomfortable to be around or be in the same room as him. Forget it—forget this. Everything included, stop making this difficult enough and cut it off. Get it over with. "And what's gotten into Shizu-chan? You sound even more like a grumpy beast." His tone is warning Shizuo and it's only fair if they fight now because relationships, maybe just this one or maybe all of them with this empty feeling of a sarcophagus around whatever feeling comes from the heart.

Shizuo shakes his head, grumbling a sigh and torn between wanting to know why these feelings have suddenly fallen off the face of the Earth, crumbling blackened ashes burned and roasted alive, screaming all the while in some reality or parallel he doesn't know or care of. "I'm not. I'm done with this, so get out." Reminding himself of the pink trickles of milk, empty carton in the sink with the rest of the mess and the crime scene here may be just as bloody if he can come to his senses before his own throat is slit with words.

"What are you trying to say, Shizu-chan?" Eyelashes dipping low, as if in quiet disbelief observing the scene of the crime where murder is about to be committed in the first degree of giving coldness served without breakfast. His skin is bare and marked by a beast so it's only fair a beast doesn't rip him apart but Shizuo is not one for the formalities that hang off his lips in the pondering of where this is all going so very wrong—it hurts, it really does—and he's supposedly the more emotionally uncontrolled of the two but in this respect he knows just how to (hurt his _lover_ ) talk to Izaya.

This is it. The moment when he breathes and speak and the Earth shatters for not at all when Shizuo decides that his thoughts are good enough to be stupid, petty excuses for starting and ending this now.

"I don't love you." Feel and trace the cracks beginning to spread, trembling with weary fingers and taking his hand away from Izaya's, nothing but empty feelings as if watching a movie he's not interested in. Waiting for the floor to open up and swallow him, no expectations met but the freezing of Izaya's skin and the bare recognition of anger surprise _hurt_ confusion wondering why why why is this not good enough and has he done something wrong in admitting it now, not sure if it's real at all.

Izaya's afraid of commitment, but Shizuo breaks it off first.

"Not anymore." He swallows another breath, watching Izaya's entire body freeze up and tense, coiling as if to run at the first sign of danger, wondering if he really is a coward. "I don't think...I don't think I loved you at all."

Izaya's frown is beautifully sad. Shizuo questions why they do this in the first place, thinking of the startling kind of brightness to feral eyes that do not belong to him and never have, never will. Red and dangerous stop sign warnings and taken too far, ending on the fork in the road and down the unpopular path for the appeal of appeasing himself. Angry fingers clenching and tightening on the counter, withdrawing in haste while Shizuo can't turn away from staring into Izaya's eyes, waiting for some form of recognition to flicker and set the informant aflame with some reaction. Anything would be useful—he needs to know these sorts of things and it's not even his concern because after all he is the one who has just dumped the Izaya Orihara.

"Bored of me already, ah..." Izaya makes the comment, stifling breaths in early morning suffocation of a kitchen and the steady cold eyes of Shizuo staring right back at him, blinking languidly in response. Shizuo doesn't make a move, roughly sighing and leaning on his elbow with the audacity as if talking about weather or something unrelated, not just ending a relationship eight months in and calling it quits. All the tiresome economics of it, waiting and doing and learning and forgetting—worthless, stupid things. Maybe Izaya should have considered more than there is to be in the beginning if he had known it would come to such stupidity like this. Mock him already, Shizu-chan. That's what he's doing, waiting for Izaya to leave without a shred of remorse or any other type of feeling.

"Did Shizu-chan find a girlfriend already? Is that why you're tired of me so suddenly?" Izaya's words sting and cut too deep for Shizuo's liking, the informant uncaring as he backs away and is still completely naked, eyes sharpening into slits of seething anger. Shizuo can't blame him but he still doesn't want to have this conversation when he doesn't know himself at all thank you very much and partway down explaining it feels like he's made the biggest mistake there is but there isn't any pain so this must be the way it has to go. "Or am I not worthy of an explanation of why you suddenly dumped me, ne?" Shizuo hates it the most when Izaya's voice cracks—he wants to comfort him because when they reach that point it's hard going back but there is no reason to hold onto him or love—just empty.

"Just go, flea. Get out." It's over. Tear away his gaze from Izaya's furious one, muted with the frequent blinking and the silent sound of wanting to shout at the flea to _stop_ doing this to him. The wetness—they both know what it is and it's not fair that Izaya gets to be upset at his own expense, Shizuo trying to prepare this the easiest way possible and being a complete idiot just as well. Only for a minute does the flea disappear down the hall, coming back dressed and the hurt expression forces Shizuo to look away. He really can't—coward. He can't do anything for himself when coming to Izaya's eyes, angry and suspiciously wet but jaw set in a curving determined smile.

"I'll see you never, ne?" Izaya reaches the door, laughing when Shizuo can't help the reaction of whipping his head toward the sound of a lover ( _ex_ lover) with a voice that doesn't sound comforting at all. Angry, upset, and swallowing over heavy sounds of giving up because Shizuo doesn't realize his own stupidity yet and maybe never. He'll never recognize tripping over himself stuck in a fork's path undecided as to where to go and maybe fall over a little more to make Izaya forget him in one of the most painful ways possible.

The door slams with a tantalizing click of stinging in his ears. "Go die." Izaya hisses with the same tone used as enemies and the full recognition of a threat is even worse. No matter, it's still Shizuo's fault for what he's done.

It takes an hour for full recognition to seep in, having a shower isn't available yet when he can't summon the will to move. Which makes no sense, because he's the one who wants this in the first place and so why can't he simply move on? Forget the stupid relationship if he's never loved Izaya and erase the expression of pain from Izaya out of his mind, let him sleep alone in a bed reeking of the flea and may as well get new bedsheets and take painkillers when his chest starts to cramp. All so frustratingly stupid for details of everything as from Izaya leaving to now, noting every single mistake in his apartment and he wonders too many questions at once, bitterly silent and frustrated because _nothing_ is going as expected.

He wants to not feel anything. [I can't believe you just did that.] Celty texts him probably after finding out from Shinra that Izaya has most likely told him of the previous events. More text messages pop up and like the rising sun outside it's too much at once to stare directly into. Love and any other drug that comes is gone and clean out of his system, withdrawal is hell and burning down in the same moments that the cramping is not the numbness in his chest. He wonders if the reason he ends this all is because he's afraid of how unbelievably real it feels.

The aching warmth of another in his arms, against him skin on skin frustration sweat and friction, denying everything just because of three words meant in any meaningful expression to as stupid as they come, smiles and charm applied. Nothing quite like having a lover who teases and taunts and still bends backward into trying to be a little better. He does—used to as well in wanting to be better but there isn't anything worse like bettering his lack of remorse for breaking apart.

Shizuo realizes later that he is a coward.

At the same time underneath or on top of bedsheets, smelling like the flea and the first parts of feeling like a complete fool when he realizes he's settled too far in having the simplicity of having Izaya around, chasing him at time and never realizing what he has. And then Izaya's too late already gone _not_ coming back going by the empty rise and fall of sheets, unsure if the dullness in his chest around the first-hand ache is supposed to still be there and it's all the stupid thing's fault. Whatever is wrong with him it's all wrong and it's over now so he's not supposed to be like this but relieved and not frustrated, unable to take a shower without staring into the mirror and feeling the urge to scream at himself.

Izaya is another kind of hurt, gone, gone, gone completely out of sight not out of mind never waiting again when Shizuo tries to wash off any feelings and go with the numbness that starts to crack. No more memories of mornings together curled in each other, kisses on breaths that aren't the best without brushing their teeth and sex at a slower pace. Faster if they count not getting caught or late into work, fingers pulling through his hair when Izaya sneaks in or catches him by surprise, maybe after a bad day. He's never sure of what this is that keeps aching and possessing him without notice, no warnings at all falling over himself in trying to bring back the logic to this situation. There isn't any he's quick to realize and a day off to be spent agonizing over his own stupidity and why he's still like this he doesn't know.

Doesn't realize that he's the only one who wanted the end, thinks he wants to split things off and forget relationships being too comfortable in this one to think straight and the taxing part is having Izaya in his bed. Not that he's the one who thinks he's been too comfortable with Izaya and that he can't try to hurt the flea and it's better if the flea isn't around.

By then, it's too late.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Imagine me and you, I do, I think about you day and night, it's only right..._  
>  I broke them up. Well, I'm officially the worst person I've ever known. Evil Incarnate, my dear Mama. Evil Incarnate...
> 
> Thank you for reading. p(´⌒｀｡q)


End file.
